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Storage spending continues to rise

Last August, Storage's first Purchasing Intentions Survey (see the August 2002 issue of Storage) predicted that 2003 would be a year of increased investment in storage by corporate IT departments, with the emphasis on storage area networks (SANs). That prediction was correct, according to our just-completed second Purchasing Intentions Survey. But while overall spending is up, we may finally be seeing evidence of a shift away from years of buying raw disk capacity toward a more even spending plan. The survey of 515 storage managers and administrators (see "How we surveyed") showed surprisingly strong spending plans. Half of all respondents plan to increase spending in 2003, with 25% increasing by more than 10%. Only 22% plan to cut spending, with the remainder unsure (10%) or holding pat (18%). Selective new tech purchases Conventional wisdom says IT shops pass on new technologies in tough times. The contrarian's perspective is that only new technologies can help a company grow out of recession. Where did our respondents come ...

Experio, the consulting arm of Hitachi USA, has more than 800 employees, 700 of which are mobile consultants. At the same time, it only has a four-person IT staff. How does Experio do it? In a word: outsourcing, including outsourced backup.

The nod has been given to ATA drives by EMC, which is now giving customers the option of buying disk array enclosures (DAEs) for their Clariion CX400 and CX600 arrays equipped with ATA, rather than the usual Fibre Channel drives.